Month: August 2017

Some of you pointed out that my post about legally driving your conversion is missing information about Nevada. I thought that was strange, so I did a little research to see what I could find about Nevada’s seatbelt laws for RVs. I was surprised to find that in the comment section of every article I read about the legal aspects of RV driving, someone was bound to comment, “What about Nevada?”

I opened an inquiry with the Nevada DMV, and will update this post with that information when I get it.

In the mean time, I went directly to the Nevada state code to read what the law has to say about seatbelts and RVs. Most states have a law on the books that states exactly what type of license is needed to drive an RV and who needs to be belted. Not Nevada.

The best information available is Nevada’s general seatbelt laws, which are not specific to RVs.

Here is what the law has to say:

“Any person driving, and any passenger who: (a) Is 6 years of age or older; or (b) Weighs more than 60 pounds, regardless of age, who rides in the front or back seat of any vehicle described in subsection 1, having an unladen weight of less than 10,000 pounds, on any highway, road or street in this State shall wear a safety belt if one is available for the seating position of the person or passenger.” (Nevada Code 484D.495)

There are exemptions, however.

“The Department shall exempt those types of motor vehicles or seating positions from the requirements of subsection 1 when compliance would be impractical” (Section 5).

That basically means that if a vehicle weighs more than 10,000 lbs, there is no legal obligation for anyone but the driver to wear a seatbelt. If a vehicle is less than 10,000 lbs, it is probably exempt from the seatbelt mandate because it is a type of vehicle in which seatbelts are impractical (i.e. they weren’t installed, your RV is a conversion, etc).

Then again, if you were to get pulled over in Nevada, I don’t imagine a cop would be too persuaded by your legal argument when they’re standing on the side of the road writing you a ticket.

Long story short, there is legal basis to suggest that only the driver and children need to be buckled in an RV in Nevada. However, this isn’t the strongest argument, so you may want to be on the safe side and just buckle passengers in Nevada.

Remember, these guidelines are only valid if your conversion is titled as an RV. If you conversion is titled as a truck or a school bus, all passengers must wear seatbelts no matter what.

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